Get paid · What a job actually cost
Labor, materials, and purchase-order cost attach to the same work order that's tied to the equipment being serviced and, when one exists, the agreement covering it — not a spreadsheet reconciled after the fact.
What it is
Job costing in Thermal is the record of what a job actually cost — labor, materials, and purchase orders — attributed to the same work order the technician was dispatched to, not a separate ledger someone reconciles at month end. That work order already carries the equipment it was for and, when one applies, the service agreement it billed under, so cost inherits both connections instead of needing its own.
Department-level cost and revenue then roll up from those same attribution events into a P&L an Owner can read by branch, department, and date range — the same events, read a level higher, not a second parallel system. It's the same math behind gross margin per job and, when the work billed under a contract, maintenance contract margin.
Cost-attribution events key off the work order — the same record already tied to the equipment it was for and, when one exists, the service agreement it billed under. A job's cost is a read against that one record, not a separately maintained project code.
One account. Every site under it.
The address, and the branch that covers it.
The unit the cost is for.
The agreement the work billed under.
The work order the cost attributes to.
Cost capture closes the loop here.
You are hereThe work order arrives from dispatch already carrying the unit and, when one exists, the agreement it billed under — so the cost that follows it inherits both links without its own bookkeeping.
| Work order | Unit · Agreement | Labour | Materials | Total cost | Revenue | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WO‑1847 | EQ‑1215 · AG‑2258Dept unassigned | $1,020 | $480 | $1,500 | $2,340 | Unassigned |
| WO‑1842 | EQ‑1188 · AG‑2240HVAC · Winnipeg | $640 | $210 | $850 | $0 | Covered |
| WO‑1843 | EQ‑1201 · AG‑2231Mechanical · Mississauga | $1,180 | $320 | $1,500 | $2,690 | 44% |
| WO‑1844 | EQ‑1222 · AG‑2263Refrigeration · Prairie | $900 | $1,450 | $2,350 | $3,180 | 26% |
| WO‑1839 | EQ‑1142 · AG‑2214HVAC · Ottawa | $760 | $190 | $950 | $1,720 | 45% |
Seven pieces of how Thermal tracks what a job actually cost — most live today, one still landing in stages.
Cost attributes to the same work order that's already linked to the specific unit being serviced and, when one exists, the service agreement it billed under — not a project code disconnected from the job that generated it.
Labor, materials, and purchase-order cost attribute the moment a job runs and an invoice is paid — an immutable attribution event per source, not a number someone re-enters from a paper ticket at month end. The event records what was posted, when, and against which record, which is also what feeds labor utilization without a separate timesheet reconciliation.
Cost and revenue roll up per department into a report an Owner can filter by branch and date, with CSV export. It ships behind a deliberate three-switch rollout a shop turns on in stages — report-only first — rather than a live number from day one.
Reclassify a live estimate, project, or work order's department from its edit screen with a required reason — the posted cost, revenue, and compensation snapshots underneath stay exactly as they were recorded. The correction is visible in the record, not silently rewritten.
A technician's commission plan — percent of job value or a flat fee, with an optional multiplier and cap — calculates the moment their work order completes and lands on a ledger, never a payout entered by hand. Rate, multiplier and cap are snapshotted when it's earned.
Reconciliation, duplicate-event, unassigned-department, and attribution-gap checks surface what needs review before a margin gets reported — so a broken total gets caught, not published.
Exports carry the department attribution recorded at the moment of posting — a later rename or reclassification never rewrites a closed period. This doesn't activate a general-ledger mapping or a payroll run on its own; Thermal runs beside your books, not inside them.
Three boundaries that keep cost numbers trustworthy.
Exports carry a snapshot of the attribution recorded at posting time, but this doesn't activate a general-ledger mapping or a payroll payout by itself. Thermal runs beside QuickBooks — never inside it. Check the integrations page for what moves.
Reclassifying a job's department records the correction, but the cost, revenue, and compensation snapshots already posted stay as they were recorded. History is never quietly rewritten to make this month's numbers look better.
The department P&L report, cost/revenue attribution, and manager compensation are three separate switches an Owner promotes one at a time — report-only first, on purpose. There's no surprise live number an org hasn't opted into.
If a capability isn't on this page, assume it isn't built. We'd rather lose a deal on a missing feature than win one on a sentence that turns out to be aspirational.
Cost reads the records a job touched and rolls up into the numbers an Owner reads.
The ones that come up when a shop has been reconciling from paper tickets at month end.
Yes, indirectly through the work order — every work order carries the equipment it was for, and cost-attribution events key off that same work order, so job cost inherits the equipment link rather than needing its own. The same inheritance applies to the agreement it billed under.
No — cost capture itself is live for every organization today. What's staged is the department P&L rollup, which promotes through report-only mode first, on purpose, before cost and revenue attribution and manager compensation turn on. There's no surprise live number an org hasn't opted into.
Cost and revenue roll up per department from the same attribution events cost capture writes, filterable by branch and date range, with CSV export. An Owner promotes the report, then capture, then manager compensation — in that order, deliberately, not all at once.
Yes — a technician's assigned commission plan calculates against their completed work order automatically and lands on a ledger; rate, multiplier, and cap are snapshotted at the moment it's earned, so editing the plan later never rewrites a commission already paid. A payout is a recorded fact, not a moving number.
It can be reclassified from its edit screen with a required reason — the correction is recorded, but the cost, revenue, and compensation snapshots already posted under the old assignment stay unchanged, so history isn't rewritten. A closed period stays closed.
Exports carry a snapshot of the attribution recorded at posting time, but this doesn't activate a general-ledger mapping or payroll payout by itself — Thermal runs beside QuickBooks, not inside it. The snapshot is the handoff; your accounting system still owns the books.
Bring the job whose margin nobody can actually state and watch its cost, revenue, and margin read off the one work order on the call.